Soul Under the Mountain (Legend of Reason Series) (19 page)

Song shook his head in disgust as he sneered. "You can kill me, Emperor. You can end my life or send my soul to the void, but you cannot convince me that your lies
are true. It's apparent to me
now that you believe those lies yourself, so I cannot hold your beliefs against you. But even through your thick fog of lies you must surely see that Rommus does not wish to rule anyone. He's a good man, trying to do what he thinks is best for the world."

"Oh my young, naïve friend, your foolish words both entertain and sadden me. You are too young to see the folly in your logic, and it appears that Rommus is too old to see the folly himself. I had reserved some small hope for you, thinking that you would begin to see the truth, but I was wrong."

"You are wrong about a great many things, Uritus. You may not think it, but it is true nonetheless. Truth is not undone by our opinion of it."

Uritus chuckled.
"Your words mean nothing. The only meaning of your entire existence was just to teach me not to reserve any hope for the foolish.
You told me you wanted to become an important man
, but the
end of your life will make more of a statement than your life ever did."

Song cringed as Uritus raised his hands. Threads of energy began to weave into a churning ball of light. Song
'
s body was frozen with fright, but his mind raced. He knew there was no time to run. There was no time to do anything. Death, it seemed, was coming in another heartbeat. He would soon reluctantly discover the secrets of the world beyond.

But something was happening inside him. At first he thought it was some strange effect from the magical, glowing tiles at his feet, but he soon realized he was wrong. There was an energy in the room. It wasn't the tiles and it wasn't the roiling energy growing between the hands of Uritus. It was
coming up through the earth beneath him and filling his entire body. All fear and worry drained from him and time seemed to slow. He could see the cords of energy rolling over the ball of light Uritus held. He had released it, and it was tumbling towards Song, a mere instant away.

But the power Song felt surging through him was stronger and faster. It roared through his left arm and down into his fingers. It took control of his muscles and forced him to bring his gauntlet up to his face. Uritus's streams of energy hit the gauntlet and bounced off, spraying in every direction. Where it hit the walls, the marble either shattered or melted. The room shook with the tremendous power, nearly knocking both men to the ground.

Song aimed his gauntleted hand at Uritus. He didn't understand how it was possible, but he was calling forth power from somewhere deep within him. Golden lights began to dance across his gauntlet as the power built up.
When the
explosion of
light came, it temporarily blinded him.
The release of that power ripped his arm backwards painfully, again nearly sending him to the floor.

Uritus was cowering, clearly terrified by what he had witnessed, but he was completely unscathed. At first Song thought that it was because of the magical robes he wore, but he soon realized that he had
missed his target completely. While the bulk of the statue at the center of the room still stood, most of the base had been destroyed.

Panic flooded into him as all of the power he was feeling drained out. He scanned the shattered wreckage of the base, hoping to see that the book was unharmed, but
saw nothing
but shards of marble and paper
.
The parts that were not burned away had turned to dust.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw
Uritus straighten,
holding
out his hands once more.

But the loud pop of cracking stone
surprised him. Uritus looked up just in time to see the heavy remains of the statue crash down upon him.

Chapter
22

"We should have chosen a warmer spot to meet," Alana said as she sat on the temple steps.

Vohl immediately removed his cape and
draped it on her shoulders,
then went back to pacing behind her. At the end of every pass, he would search the area for any sign of Song. With
the snow only having been removed from the temple steps, his form would stand out against the remaining white snow in the streets. But everywhere he looked, he saw nothing but snow.

Alana turned up to face him. "Do you think we should go back in there and look for him?"

"No, I do not think that would be wise. It is far too risky to do any such thing right now. They most certainly have found all the men we killed by now, and they will be waiting for us."

"So what? They were
probably
waiting for us when we walked in last time. We were able to fight them and get out."

Vohl shook his head. "I do not think they were expecting us this night, my Lady. We were fortunate enough to have stumbled through their maze on a night where they did not know we were coming. To return would be folly. They will kill you on the spot if we go back in."

"But they’ll kill Song too, Vohl. We need to save him."

"Song is destined to escape this peril. He must survive if he is to travel into the past and become the Emperor of Medora."

Alana shivered and pulled the cape tighter around her. "I was thinking about that while we were in there. I am not so sure that Song is the one who has
to go back in time. We learned that the
Book of Eternal Wisdom
remains unchanged, no matter what, but that doesn't mean that the person writing it can't be someone other than Song. If Song dies, then History will be forced to find another suitable person to fill his role. Assuming he will survive does not make him invincible."

Vohl put a palm to his head and thought a moment. "I suppose there is logic in those words. I do not know for sure what fate has in store for him, but right now we need to stick to our plan; and our plan does not include going back into that hornets' nest."

"Well we can't wait here all night either. I'm going to freeze to death here soon. You probably will too."

"Not to death, my Lady. The cold cannot claim this soul."

"Oh right, I forgot. It must be so odd to know you can never die. Everything in the world begins and ends. It must be so strange to be excluded
from that
."

Vohl sighed quietly. "I have grown accustomed to exclusion, my Lady. It does not remain an odd feeling for very long. In fact, it is a strange feeling to know I am accepted. For nearly all of my life my
views have been rejected. I was hated for centuries by people who were nearly identical to me in every way except our personal beliefs
. They hunted me, and as you have
see
n
, they still do.

"But to your point on being immune from death, I do not think any soul can ever quite grasp it. I have suffered injuries that would kill a man countless times, and the worst that happens is loss of consciousness. When I awake, I am always alive and healthy, although admittedly I sometimes do not expect to wake at all.

"To sit and ponder the realities of eternity can be overwhelming to say the least. When I consider the ramifications, I often reach a point in my mind where reason seems to break down. It is like reaching a wall in my mind where I cannot experience what is on the other side of it."

Alana blew hot air into her hands to warm them. "Well, I can understand that much of it. For those of us who are not immortal, we are cursed with a similar wall. We don't know what comes after this life, and no matter what we're told, there's just no way to find out. I mean, we walked right over to the Land of the Gods and saw Morendiir, the literal city of the dead. We saw those people who were there who looked like green statues. Is that where I go when I die? Or the void? No matter how much I learn about it, I can't make any sense of it."

"No, I am afraid none of us can, my Lady. I have walked the earth for more than 3,000 years, and I am
no closer to an answer than you are. I do not know the nature of the realms beyond, nor can I ever discover that secret. At least you can discover it one day."

Alana laughed. "Yeah, but I have to
die
first. I don't want to know
that
badly."

"You do not desire to move on to another realm and reap your rewards for the good deeds you have performed?"

"No, Vohl, I don't. The way I see it, this world is our reward. We're alive in this wonderful world right now, finding happiness and bringing happiness to others. Anything beyond this world is totally uncertain, so we'd better make this life count. This life is all we can be sure we get."

Vohl sat next to her, despite the fact that the steps were dirty. "And what about all the terrible things that happen in this world? The world is full of horrors humans commit on each other. Children sometimes die before their first birthday. How can this world be a reward?"

"Bad things do happen, Vohl. There's no denying that. But the
world
is not responsible for them—we are. We are the ones who make terrible things happen, but we are also the ones who make great things happen. I think that there are just far too many people thinking happiness comes from money or power, when in reality happiness comes from making others happy. If we all did a little more of that, the world would be a much better place."

Vohl found himself staring blankly across the street at another building. "How I wish I could bring more happiness into this world. But alas, such is not my fate."

She looked over at him in the darkness. "Fate is what we make it, Vohl. We control fate; fate does not control us. We just have to find what we want, and go after it."

The silence after her comm
ent seemed to go on forever. Thanks to the darkness, he could stare into her eyes and not risk corrupting her mind with his power. He relished the moment and the look he imagined her face to have. His
thundering heart
screamed at him to lean in, but his
mind
screamed that she would pull away. He heard her words repeating over and over in his head. He knew what he wanted. He wanted to go after it. She could at least appreciate what he was trying to do; even if she shot him down entirely. Reluctantly, he leaned in just a little bit.

"I have bad news," A breathless Song said as he came up behind them.

Vohl jumped at the surprise interruption. "Song! Are you alright? What happened to you?"

"I'm fine. I found a secret passageway into a whole different part of the labyrinth. I think nearly the entire mountain behind the Emperor's Hall is hollowed out. I can't even imagine how such a thing could be accomplished.

"Anyway, there was a small room inside there, and Uritus was there with the book. He and I talked briefly, but then we fought."

Alana nearly choked on the words trying to escape her mouth. "You
fought
him?" How?"

"I wish I knew. When I say we fought, I don't mean with our fists.
He attacked me with magic, and something strange happened."

"Well, what was it?" Alana asked when he paused.

"I felt something inside me. I think I felt it coming up from the ground. It filled me with some kind of power and I let it take over. I was able to block his fiery attack, and that shocked him. Then I somehow conjured up some magic of my own. I sent this beam of light out at him but I missed. I hit a statue instead and it ended up falling over and crushing him."

"Are you
serious
?" Alana asked. "
You killed him with magic
?"

"I didn't bother to check
if he was dead
. I can't see how he could survive that statue falling over on him. I know it hit him
because there was blood and his bones were even showing
. I saw it land on him very clearly."

Alana turned to Vohl. "Magic? I don't get it."

"Remember, my Lady, Ridoria founded the Silver Mages."

"What?" Song asked
as he watched Alana nod
. "What does that mean?"

Vohl ignored his question, standing up to brush himself off a bit. "Well killing Uritus sounds like good news, Song. What is the bad part?"

"Well, when I missed and hit the statue, the book was there. I destroyed it.
It's gone.
"

Vohl smiled in the darkness, placing a hand on Song's shoulder. "
Do not worry
about that
, my friend. We have something we need to show you."

Chapter 23

Uritus screamed in pain. Other Mages tried to comfort him, but there was very little they could do.
His left arm had been completely destroyed; no long
er
the strong, solid form it once was. Fragments of bone protruded from his skin, and parts where the statue had pinned him down were crushed into a paste of bone and flesh. Small chunks of marble bits still clung to the exposed tissue, and Mages were working diligently to clean them out.